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The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#951

Post by edejong »

paulddraper wrote: post #789
edejong wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> True, though usually viruses mutate into less virulent forms. Citation needed. The delta variant is the prime counter-example with higher R0 and slightly higher mortality. SAGE admitted SARS-CoV-2 will very likely mutate to defeat all build-up immunity. Variants of SARS-CoV-2 (SARS and MERS) showed the potential to have very high infection fatality ratios. There is no reason at all to suspect COVID will suddenly be…

> higher R0 Contagiousness can certainly increase. Virulency does not usually increase. Severe flu seasons are characterized by increased infections, not so much increased fatality rate. > Citation needed. "Most viruses become less deadly as they mutate." https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/02/27/... (The article is about how COVID might buck the general trend. But in any case, that is the trend.)

Ok, instead of some handwaving from economist, I'd rather have Nature [1] with loads of good references and no paywall.

My point is that we simply do not know. The word 'usual' is deceptive here. Usual for the viruses we studied? Usual for all viruses? Usual for viruses which recently have made the jump to a new species? We do not know. We simply have no idea.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-018-0055-5

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#952

Post by habosa »

justin66 wrote: post #829
habosa wrote: post #700

At this point we almost know too much about the spread of this disease. Never in history have we tested so much for one thing. Never in history have we really worried about asymptomatic cases of anything. This is probably the first time in history that the whole world has the same scary thing as their front-page news. It's going to be really, really hard for us to shake the mindset that thousands of covid cases === d…

> Never in history have we really worried about asymptomatic cases of anything. This was an extremely silly thing to write. Typhoid Mary was tracked down, was locked up for three decades and became a legend over a century ago. Before modern drugs and widespread vaccination programs people worried a lot about asymptomatic transmission of disease. You might argue that not having to worry as much about survival now that…

Point taken about Typhoid Mary. I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about.

As for the testing ... I still do think Covid is extremely unique here. The US has given over 500M tests (~1.5/person) and the UK has given over 250M tests (~4/person) in less than two years. Many employers and schools are scaling up plans to do one or more tests per week per person. Sure maybe we haven't caught up to the total TB tests given across all time yet, but the rate of testing for this disease is far greater than anything that preceded it and looks like it will stay that way.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#953

Post by paulddraper »

edejong wrote: post #951
paulddraper wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> higher R0 Contagiousness can certainly increase. Virulency does not usually increase. Severe flu seasons are characterized by increased infections, not so much increased fatality rate. > Citation needed. "Most viruses become less deadly as they mutate." https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2021/02/27/... (The article is about how COVID might buck the general trend. But in any case, that is the trend.)

Ok, instead of some handwaving from economist, I'd rather have Nature [1] with loads of good references and no paywall. My point is that we simply do not know. The word 'usual' is deceptive here. Usual for the viruses we studied? Usual for all viruses? Usual for viruses which recently have made the jump to a new species? We do not know. We simply have no idea. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-018-0055-5

> usual

> no idea

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#954

Post by justin66 »

habosa wrote: post #952
justin66 wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never in history have we really worried about asymptomatic cases of anything. This was an extremely silly thing to write. Typhoid Mary was tracked down, was locked up for three decades and became a legend over a century ago. Before modern drugs and widespread vaccination programs people worried a lot about asymptomatic transmission of disease. You might argue that not having to worry as much about survival now that…

Point taken about Typhoid Mary. I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about. As for the testing ... I still do think Covid is extremely unique here. The US has given over 500M tests (~1.5/person) and the UK has given over 250M tests (~4/person) in less than two years. Many employers and schools are scaling up plans to do one or more test…

It's an interesting question of how to qualify your words when you talk about how widespread the tests are. I'm sure fewer than half the people I know have had COVID tests (versus tests everyone gets), which makes the tests per person metric potentially a little deceptive. I think it's a fair point that the possibility of constant testing tied to access to employment or entertainment could change our culture.

> I should have said never before have we had so much information about asymptomatic disease transmission to see / worry about.

I think this is much less of a problem than you make it out to be. Having a lot of information, and having the information gradually improve in quality, is a good thing. The media's inundation of people with the information and the insanely stupid public dialogue surrounding it all is... less good.

Nevertheless, to the original point, I think all the analogies a person could draw between today and the dynamics of the AIDS epidemic and those years of uncertainty, discrimination and death make what's happening today seem less psychologically traumatic by comparison. Maybe it's less clear because we were already dealing with Very Stupid Times before COVID 19 came along.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#955

Post by maerF0x0 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #767
maerF0x0 wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and a unusually contagious and deadly mutant will always be a possibility. Is this not the case with other existing virus' like the flu? Yet people choose to go on with daily activities, even bringing it to the office just to feel (self?) important ...

Possibly, though how often has a routine flu strain become a pandemic that overwhelms hospitals?

agreed in the early days, and i'm not scientician, but my understand was that once you've had it you become increasingly immune (or unlikely to require hospitalization).

I was more thinking about the future, than the immediate response.

Seems like someday Corona virus will be something we just get like a cold or chicken pox?

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#956

Post by tunesmith »

vmception wrote: post #894
tunesmith wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to pick one metric, if the exponential growth of the disease has any chance of overwhelming hospitals, then regional Rt > 1 should be the only metric for any mitigation measure. If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease. It makes no sense. If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place…

> If you're okay with Rt > 1 until hospitals are close to overwhelmed, then it means you were okay with allowing a doubling rate for a dangerous disease.... If you're destined to put mitigation measures in place eventually, why not just do them sooner and save a lot of suffering? correct, it makes sense because now people have a choice about whether the prevalence of the disease will land them in the hospital. the me…

Rt>1 means the breakout is growing in size.

So no, you don't want business as usual until ICU capacity is near full. If you do that, you're basically destined to overwhelm ICU capacity.

If you increase ICU capacity, that solves nothing, because you're still satisfied with business as usual until ICU capacity is near full. No matter how big you make ICU capacity, Rt>1 means you will hit that capacity eventually. That's what exponential growth means.

The only answer is to move Rt<1, and you might as well do that sooner rather than later.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#957

Post by silent_cal »

actuallyalys wrote: post #946
silent_cal wrote: post #943

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors who recommend these medications aren't recommending them in isolation, but in combination. Check out the AAPS Guide to Home-Based COVID Treatment for more info. You have to ask yourself why doctors aren't treating people with covid until they can't breathe.

According to Wikipedia, "the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a conservative non-profit association that promotes medical disinformation, HIV/AIDS denialism, the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis, vaccine and autism connections, and homosexuality reducing life expectancy."

>According to Wikipedia

Lol

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#958

Post by amatecha »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #647
amatecha wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely a lack of beds. Someone I know was in emergency last week (totally unrelated to pandemic) and had to wait an entire day before actually being properly admitted to a ward because there were no beds available for them. So they layed in an emergency room "booth"[0] for close to 24 hours, until a bed became available. There are lots of news articles about the lack of beds/capacity all o…

When you are told there is a lack of beds, it really doesn't have to mean a lack of physical beds. A bed that isn't staffed with a nurse is no more useful then laying in your bed at home.

Yeah, people keep responding to this, so I'll reply.. Yeah, the beds are literally full, at least in the hospital I was in. People on beds in the hallways and stuff. It's not a staffing shortage or anything like that.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#959

Post by Johnny555 »

account42 wrote: post #920
Johnny555 wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or how about how everyone was anti mask in the beginning, including the CDC, WHO, and my very liberal coworkers. When I said it would be advisable to wear a mask when in crowded places March, 2020 - I was heckled for not following the science. Hindsight is always 20/20, early on the virus was not believed to be airborne, only spread through relatively large droplets from coughing/sneezing which you'd likely only enco…

> Hindsight is always 20/20, early on the virus was not believed to be airborne, only spread through relatively large droplets from coughing/sneezing which you'd likely only encounter in close contact with an actively ill person. This isn't about hindsight. Coronaviruses are not an unknown and airborne spread should have been assumed unless ruled out. And it was assumed by many: Taiwan immediately mobilized their mil…

Coronaviruses are not an unknown and airborne spread should have been assumed unless ruled out.

That's the hindsight I'm talking about. The WHO declared that it was not airborne at the beginning of the pandemic, as did the CDC, and it took a long time for them to change their guidance. Even independent aerosol researchers didn't release their findings until April, but that was after the CDC had already asked people to wear cloth masks.

Treating people like dumb idiots that you need to lie to to get what you want results in those people mistrusting your future recommendations, e.g. to get vaccinated.

You have more faith in people than I do -- the truth is that many of the public are dumb idiots and if you say "We want you to wear cloth masks to protect either other, but please dont use N95 masks, we need those for first responders", the first thing that will happen is that there will be a run on N95 masks, leaving none for first responders. Which happened anyway, my older sister ended up sewing homemade masks that my younger sister used in her job in healthcare because they had to ration N95's.

But supply chain issues for PPE is a whole different problem, and I'm not sure we've solved it.

Re: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

#960

Post by partiallypro »

TenJack wrote: post #712
partiallypro wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be joking? As bad as (some) Republicans are let's not forget Biden, Harris, Schumer, etc saying they wouldn't take the "Trump Vaccine." Not only did that put distrust into the hearts of people on the left, it also gave ammunition for the people on the right. It should have never been a political issue. Unfortunately this is a bipartisan problem (though right now it's more prevalent on the right, I suspect if…

As far as I can tell Biden and Harris said they distrusted the Trump rollout of the vaccine but not the vaccine itself. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...

Politifact is so off on this one.
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